Oftentimes it is necessary in the commercial and military communications field to carry antenna masts for the use of receiving radio frequency signals. These masts are generally telescopic and can be either standalone or vehicle mounted.
The standalone masts can be carried in bags and removed at the point of use and manually erected, having guy wires for maintaining the mast in an upright position. Typically, the vehicle mounted masts are also held by guy wires, as the masts are telescopically extendable from a collapsed length of 8-10 feet to an erected height of 20-100 feet.
The vehicle mounted masts tend to be cumbersome and raise the vehicle height or weight substantially. In the case of military vehicles, both height (vertical clearance) and weight are important as oftentimes, the entire vehicles are shipped via aircraft.